


Fuck Loyalty

by vintagewoe



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV), game of thrones
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-30
Updated: 2017-08-30
Packaged: 2018-12-21 14:39:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11946378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vintagewoe/pseuds/vintagewoe
Summary: Jaime thinks about loyalty, his relationship with Cersei, and his feelings for Brienne. Takes place during episode 7.7 while Cersei and Tyrion are talking.





	Fuck Loyalty

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This is my first fic. I apologize if it's a bit of a mess; I haven't written in roughly 7 years haha. Please leave comments or criticisms. If people enjoy this at all, I might try to start writing more again.

It had only been an hour at most since he’d walked away from Brienne, but what she said had stayed with him. She didn’t badger Jaime at all; in fact, she let him leave without the slightest fight, but her words were still pounding relentlessly into his head. He felt concussed, almost.  


“Fuck loyalty,” she told him. Fuck loyalty? Brienne of Tarth took loyalty more seriously than any person he’d ever met. It had been years since Lady Catelyn’s death, yet there she was: standing in the dragon pits of King’s Landing just to protect the Stark girls from his own sister. She hadn’t even sworn fealty to the girls themselves, he thought, but she had promised Catelyn that she would return them to her. When she was unable to do so before their mother’s death, it was Jaime that had convinced her to continue her oath by protecting Sansa and Arya.  


“I’ll find them,” she said. “For Lady Catelyn, and for you.” Brienne kept her word, of course, as he knew she would. But now she was here, at his doorstep, telling him to fuck loyalty. It was Brienne that made him believe he was even capable of loyalty, but now she was telling him to give up on that? The only person he’d ever been truly loyal to was Cersei, and perhaps his father up until the end. He had thought that he was being honorable by freeing his brother, but Tyrion took that gesture and betrayed him by killing their father and pledging himself to their foreign enemy.  


Tyrion insisted that he did not do so to spite their family, that he genuinely believed in Daenerys Targaryen, but Jaime could not believe that. He’d seen the devastation that the Dragon Queen was capable of; he’d seen her dragons burn thousands of good men alive. She was a Targaryen, the daughter of the Mad King. If the last dragons had been the size of even Daenerys's smallest child, Aerys would have used them to watch the world burn. He had done right by breaking his oath them, and he was doing right by standing with Cersei now. This is loyalty, he told himself. She may not be quite the same woman he fell in love with, but he would stay by her side. Jaime had to think about what was right for her and their unborn child. He and Cersei were the last of their family. Their child would carry that legacy on for years to come. Unlike his late children before, Jaime would teach this one what is right. This child would know their father and would be raised to be the greatest ruler that Westeros had ever seen.  


Despite this, he could not shake Brienne from his head. “This goes beyond houses and honor and oaths,” she had said. Did the words only echo because of their meaning, or was he only so fixated on them because of the woman that had spoken them? There was no denying that he felt something for her, but it’s not as if he could betray the Lannister name for a few petty feelings. He tried to focus on the words alone. The White Walker threat was imminent, but if his sister was right, Daenerys and her dragons would either defeat the army of the dead, leaving her in a weakened state that he could take advantage of, or the dead would destroy the North and march on to King’s Landing. If the latter were to happen, they could potentially defeat them with wildfire. At that point, though, millions will have died across the Seven Kingdoms. What would they even be ruling after most of the population had gone? It wouldn’t be much, but Cersei only cared about the survival of their family. It was clear that she would not care even if all of her people were sacrificed in the process.  
Jaime decided to let himself think about Brienne. Honorable, noble Brienne of Tarth. It was Brienne that made him learn to value honor. Yet here she was, asking him to give up his loyalty. When they had first met, he resented her for the position of power that she held over him. He resented the even the idea of a woman so ugly that she could not make it as a Lady. She did not have the privilege of being born a man in this world, so it wasn’t as if she could inherit her land or become a proper knight. When he met her, before he had even lost his sword hand, she was already a better fighter than he had ever been. He, of course, also resented that.  


While his feelings toward her came primarily from a place of pride, hers were so strong and so primal that they were almost pure. He stood against everything that she valued. Kingslayer. Oathbreaker. A man without honor. Jaime had been called those words for so long that even he began to believe them. Brienne built her entire life around loyalty, and having to transport a man that betrayed his own king was the worst hell she could imagine. Over their journey together, he began to find her obsession with honor to be a positive trait instead of one that he found irritating.  


When he was released from Harrenhal, he desperately wished he could travel home without her. On that first day, it seemed as if he would be able to do just that, but that night when he was finally able to sleep, his dreams were consumed with her image. He remembered the look on her face when Locke’s men dragged her away, and the pain in her sapphire eyes haunted him. He woke up that night in a cold sweat, and he knew that not only did he no longer loathe her but that he had a duty to help her in the way that she had done for him.  


His feelings for her only grew after that, but he chose to think that he was only missing Cersei. After they returned to King’s Landing, he was prepared to go on with his life as he had before her. Jaime gifted her with armor worthy of a knight of her caliber, and the sword that had been meant for him. He knew that only Brienne could possibly deserve it. Oathkeeper, she had named it. If only she knew just how much that meant to him. He said goodbye then, and he expected never to see her again, but he did. Even years later and after being reunited with his sister, his feelings for her did not fade.  


He wondered if Cersei had any love left for him, or if she only held on so tightly because he was all that she had left. He knew Brienne loved him, in a way, but he also knew that he would never be a man worthy of her love. It was almost as if he deserved Cersei: like the Gods were punishing him for his lack of honor earlier in life. Jaime hated himself for believing that staying with the woman he loved was a punishment. Since Tommen’s death, she seemed to grow more toxic every day. If he thought about it too much, she almost reminded him of the Mad King more than Daenerys.  


“That’s it,” he thought. She reminded him of Aerys Targaryen. Jaime staying by her side was somewhat like fulfilling his debt to the late King. He wanted to believe that she would not let herself go as far as Aerys had, but he knew in his heart that she would. Though he was alone in the hall outside of Cersei’s chambers, he spoke aloud.  


“I don’t believe her,” he said. “I don’t believe in her.” He suppressed the thought that followed. _I don’t love her. ___


End file.
